CHAPTER 10: THE SPARROW'S TEST
The night before Isla de Muerta, Gibbs found me at the bow.
I'd been watching the horizon—that dark smudge growing larger with each passing hour. The pull in my chest pointed toward Jack at the helm, steady as a compass needle. Cotton's parrot had finally stopped its prophecies of death and found somewhere else to roost.
"A word, if you please."
Gibbs' voice was different. Lower. Conspiratorial. He glanced over his shoulder before stepping closer.
"There's something you should know. About the captain."
I kept my face neutral. "What about him?"
"His plan." Gibbs leaned in, rum-breath washing over me. "It's not what he told us. The treasure on that island—Barbossa's cursed gold—Jack means to take it for himself. Cut the crew out entirely."
The words hung in the salt air.
"And why are you telling me this?"
"Because I've been watching you." Gibbs' eyes narrowed. "You're capable. Careful. You notice things others miss. The kind of man who might be useful in... a reorganization of command."
Mutiny. He was proposing mutiny.
Every alarm in my head fired at once—but not the ones Gibbs expected. This was wrong. Not morally wrong, though it was that too. Factually wrong.
I knew Jack Sparrow. Not well, not personally, but from fragments of memory that felt like dreams. Jack was many things—schemer, scoundrel, unreliable in a dozen different ways. But he wasn't this. He didn't betray crews for gold. He betrayed them for freedom, for the Pearl, for survival. Never for simple treasure.
This wasn't a mutiny proposal.
This was a test.
"No."
Gibbs blinked. "No?"
"Jack's a scoundrel." I kept my voice steady. "But he's our scoundrel. I signed on; I stay signed on. Whatever games he's playing, they're his games to play."
The silence stretched. Gibbs' expression shifted—testing wariness becoming something else. Approval, maybe. Or respect.
"That was fast," he said. "Most men would at least pretend to consider it."
"I'm not most men."
"No." A new voice, from the shadows. "You're definitely not."
Jack Sparrow materialized from the darkness like a ghost in a tricorn hat. How long had he been there? The pull in my chest had been pointing at him constantly—I should have realized he was closer than the helm.
"An interesting response," Jack continued, circling me with that peculiar swagger. "No hesitation. No 'let me think about it.' No playing along to learn more about the scheme." He stopped directly in front of me. "Either you're genuinely loyal, which would be refreshingly unusual. Or you're playing a game so complex that refusing my test is part of your strategy."
"Maybe I just don't like mutiny."
"Nobody likes mutiny. It's inconvenient, messy, bad for morale." Jack waved a hand dismissively. "But most men consider it when offered. You didn't consider. You knew."
Because I know you, I didn't say. Because I've seen your story and you're not this kind of villain.
"I trusted my gut."
"Your gut." Jack studied me with those too-sharp eyes. "Your gut that told you to save Cotton. Your gut that keeps you close to me without explanation. Your gut that seems to know things before they happen."
"I'm just observant."
"Mmm." He clearly didn't believe me. "Keep being observant, Mister Balmond. I find it... interesting."
He clapped my shoulder before walking away. The gesture felt less like camaraderie and more like a collector marking a specimen.
Gibbs lingered.
"For what it's worth," he said quietly, "I hoped you'd refuse. Makes things simpler."
"Was any of it true? The treasure scheme?"
Gibbs snorted. "Jack's scheme is Jack's scheme. I stopped trying to understand years ago." He paused. "But no. He wouldn't cut out the crew. Not for gold."
"What would he cut them out for?"
"The Pearl." No hesitation. "If it came down to crew or ship, ship wins. Remember that."
He walked away, leaving me alone with the stars and the growing shadow of Isla de Muerta.
My hands were shaking.
The confrontation had triggered something—memories of the tavern in Tortuga, the knife sliding between my ribs, the cold realization that I was dying. Gibbs' conspiratorial pressure had felt like that. Like danger without warning. Like death coming from a direction I didn't expect.
I gripped the rail until my knuckles went white. Counted breaths. Let the trembling work itself out.
You're not that person anymore, I told myself. You've died once and come back. A loyalty test from a pirate captain isn't going to break you.
But my hands didn't stop shaking for a long time.
When I finally turned back toward the helm, Jack was watching me from the wheel. That calculating gaze. That patient assessment.
He was fitting puzzle pieces together. And sooner or later, he was going to figure out I didn't belong in this picture at all.
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